Venezuela: Former President Sees PDVSA’s LNG Export Plan as Implausible

Plans by Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA to export LNG produced from large offshore reserves are a non-starter due to the country’s ongoing gas deficit, the company’s former president Luis Giusti told BNamericas.

“I don’t believe it. They can’t even meet their own demand. If you look at the western side of the country, petrochemical plants there aren’t working because they can’t get enough gas,” Giusti said on the sidelines of the BNamericas Andean Energy Summit in Bogotá.

Despite the ongoing need to import gas from neighbor Colombia, Venezuela’s government has long spoken of its desire to launch an LNG export program through PDVSA.

Authorities have previously said that operations could start in 2014, when production from the giant offshore Mariscal Sucre gas project comes online. Production from the offshore fields which form part of the project is expected to reach 2Bf3/d (56.6Mm3/d).

Colombia’s NOC Ecopetrol , in conjunction with multinational Chevron , currently sends 150Mf3/d of natural gas across the border.

Under the terms of the current contract, Venezuela is supposed to reverse the flow of the pipeline and supply Colombia with 137Mf3/d of natural gas beginning in 2012, however, Giusti expressed doubts that this would happen.

 “Venezuela is a mess. They are importing gas from Colombia to meet their own demand, so I don’t see it.”

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Source: BNAmericas, July 18, 2011;